Discoloured
by KeyLimeChibi
Summary: Even as a little girl, she would make up worlds with purple clouds and blue grass where cats could talk and her parents loved her. 6996 fluff.


Nagi liked to draw pictures.

Even as a little girl, she would make up worlds with purple clouds and blue grass where cats could talk and her parents loved her.

_Oh,_ she thought one day in the hospital, _I guess I won't get my sketchbook back._

Her breathing laboured and supported by machines, how would it be possible for her to take pencil to paper again? The colourful pencils and markers she saved her allowance for, - despite her family being well-to-do - would be useless now. She didn't want to be given them, she wanted to earn them, and therefore she did her best to obtain them. Squirreling away spare coins and birthday money to buy expensive, vibrant paints and real inks – all to create silly little drawings.

Drawings and paintings that nobody else saw.

Nobody looked in her sketchbook but her. She learned early on that it was simple fact that her mother wasn't interested. Her step-father? Even less likely than her mother. Her worlds of mismatched colours and made-up animals was kept to herself. Even when she became rather good at it.

So it was natural that her drawings were left behind with 'Nagi'. 'Chrome' did not need pencils and papers. All she needed was her mind's eye and her Master's guidance, and the pictures she used to doodle would become reality for everyone's eyes.

xxx

"What are you thinking about?" Mukuro asks one day. The two of them are sitting at the lakeside, a single tree in the landscape their only shade from a sun that doesn't really exist. "I can tell it's something fun."

She shakes her head, embarrassed. "It's . . . a childish thing. I just remembered it, for some reason."

"Do tell," he slouches, His head at the edge of her thigh as he lays on the grass. "You know how much I like stories."

"Your stories are much more interesting, Mukuro-sama," she flushes, "There are so many from your life – ah, lives."

He chuckles, but his trademark hiss is never foreboding to her.

"When you've lived as long as I do, your own stories become boring, Chrome," he chuckles, reaching up to sweep a lock of indigo-black hair from her sight – a frivolous gesture; that eye is covered anyhow. "Tell me."

Then again, Mukuro is the near-embodiment of frivolous gestures. There is no _need_ to create this beautiful place to speak to her. (An empty room would do, if no room at all.) There is no _need_ to even speak to her any more than when switching command on her body. (Because he saved her for his own use, she would more than understand if he didn't talk to her at all.) There was no _need_ to give her a new name, to give her bravery, to give her strength.

There was no _need_ for any of it. This man had the power to do it all himself, if he took the right strides. Even from a watery prison beneath the earth.

She complies; it is the least she can do. From her side, she picks up a book. This world is not real, so of course, neither is the book. But she remembers every page, every tear, every dog-eared corner, every torn-out page and every scratch in the covering – even now, and recreates it near perfectly in this world for him to see. (The only other person to see it, ever.) She tells him her story – how she would draw when there was nobody else at home, or when she was alone at lunch. How clumsy she was with pen inks and how furious her parents were for spilling watercolours on the tablecloth.

The only thing 'Chrome' seemed to inherit from 'Nagi' was a lack of social skills.

"But they were just silly drawings," she dismisses it, softly touching the worn cover, "They had no correlation with any reality."

He laughs again. "You and I really are the same." She can only meet his upside-down gaze, confused.

"Do you not realize?" he sits up, slowly prying the book from her slim fingers. She resists at first, but Mukuro's wants are absolute orders. And the hard cover slips out of her hand with relative ease.

"Realize?"

"My dear," he smiles, "You and I have been doing the same thing. Imagining worlds that don't exist, and believing with all your heart that they do. To the point where we can produce our worlds in reality, and make others believe. You may have not shown anyone your creations, but I know your imagination; when you really use it, it's broader than my own." Mukuro moves to open the book, but hesitates, looking back to her. "May I?"

She nods. There it is again; He didn't _need_ to ask, but did anyway.

He flips through the book, not at all quickly. He takes the time to look at each page, whether upon it is a mere scribble or a full painting. The pages are stiff in his lithe hands. She finds herself embarrassed looking back on the drawings, even from the low visibility at the angle she sits at. _They really were terrible,_ her shoulders slump, _even though I thought they were so perfect before._

"These are beautiful," Mukuro says, continuing to flip through. No sarcasm, no easy remark to get her to stop talking about it. "When did you do these?"

Chrome grips the hem of her dress. "Some of them are more recent than others. . . . th-there's no real order. I don't remember when I started drawing in that book," she admits sheepishly.

"You're so talented," he praises, looking up to meet her uneven gaze once more – though his face falls for a moment. "It's a shame I've taken you away from it."

Chrome immediately placed her hands over the sketches in his hands, unwavering eye on her master. "That's not true! Without you – without Mukuro-sama, I wouldn't be here at all."

That seems to bring his smile back. He sets the sketchbook aside, hands now free to touch her face. She wonders if, even in a false reality, if he could feel the hot fluster on her cheeks. After a moment – a moment that wasn't long enough, she decides – he lets go.

"I knew I was right," he hummed, "I knew you would make a good illusionist. After all, you were creating worlds years before I stumbled upon you."

His praise is not nearly half-hearted, but it doesn't fill her with as much of a prideful feeling as she hoped. Chrome is glad that her master is happy with her status. But then what is it in her that is not filled? Is she really that greedy?

Of course she is; the proof is in that silly little sketchbook. She'd been chasing irrational worlds for years. And even with a change of persona, she still was chasing things she could not have. Only now, she produced them as illusions to trick the mind, not paintings or sketches.

Mukuro starts up again, in the silence. "Say, Chrome," he says, "Will you teach me how to draw one day?"

She blinks, surprised. "I-I don't think – I haven't drawn in –"

His heterochromatic eyes settle on her, no malice behind the number embedded in that red pool. Nothing foreboding, like the stare he gives those against him. Only this gentle side of his existence that only she sees. (Or a gentle act, to keep her wrapped around his little finger. Even if it is fake, she doesn't care.)

"Your pictures are lovely. I'd like to put my designs on paper like that one day," he sighs into the distance. His 'irrational worlds' only last for the time they need to; and his 'irrational worlds' are meant for killing and twisting the mind. So very different from the innocent playgrounds etched in Chrome's – Nagi's – papers.

Chrome smiles – an action as rare as Mukuro's kindness. "You already paint beautiful pictures, Mukuro-sama. We're in one right now, right?"

He laces his long fingers between her shorter ones. His forehead knocks lightly against hers. "One day, this won't be an illusion. I'll find a beautiful place just for you."

xxx

And then she woke up, having rolled off that grungy couch in Kokuyo.

**AN:**

_I'm so ashamed. For so long I've wanted to write something good for KHR, torn between 1896 and 6996. (And even more shameless plugs of 189669.) 1896 is my total OTP, though I just couldn't get rid of this plot bunny or re-wire it for Hibari to be in there somewhere. But surely, surely, I __**will**__ write 1896 one day! One day!_

_Chrome and Mukuro make me wibble. I love love love them. One day rather than protective Mukuro, I'll write twisted Mukuro. Looks like fun. Please look forward to it~ _

_Reviews are super awesome too, if anyone's wondering. /cough. Thanks for reading!_


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